Ted Dekker is by far one of my favorite authors. I’ve read everything he’s written except for his Martyr’s Song series (I’m working on it!) and his newest releases, Adam, Chosen, and Infidel.
That being said, while I greatly enjoyed Skin, it wasn’t my favorite Dekker novel. Of course, I think that just about any Dekker fan has got to concede that the Circle Trilogy will always reign supreme–it’s undoubtedly my favorite. After that it becomes difficult to pick a favorite because all of his novels are so inventive, but I have to say that Skin isn’t it.
Like I said, this isn’t to say I didn’t like Skin. While I thought it was rather pedestrian at first, by the end of the book Dekker managed to surprise me yet again with a twist I didn’t see coming. He also employs an excellent technique–revealing a small twist, to which you say, “I saw that coming,” only to reveal an even bigger twist that catches you by surprise. It’s misdirection at its best.
I don’t want to reveal what that twist is, but I do want to point out that it’s nothing terribly new; there have been movies that explore similar concepts. But the real beauty of Dekker’s integration of this concept in this novel is that you don’t see it coming, and it causes you to look at the preceding pages in an entirely different light, which all good twists should do.
Dekker also subtly connected Skin to the Circle trilogy. He’s been doing that a lot lately. He did it in Showdown, which he connected Saint to. These books aren’t marketed as sequels; they’re marketed as stand-alone novels, but Dekker ties them together with thin threads of a larger tapestry. Isaac Asimov did something similar when he tied together his Robot novels with his Foundation series (which totally blew my mind, I must say). I’m not sure that Dekker employs this technique as effectively as Asimov did, but it’s an interesting technique nonetheless.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Skin seems a little commonplace at first, but if you stick it out until the end, you’ll be rewarded with another one of Ted Dekker’s signature suspense novels with a heavy helping of faith in the midst of it.
